LibPortal Project

The LibPortal project was concerned with a comprehensive review of current practice and future prospects in academic library portals through a series of surveys of libraries and their users as well as other evidence gathering approaches. The main aim of the Project was to assemble and disseminate information that enabled the JISC community to understand the development, implementation and use of library portals by institutions in higher and further education.

The Project represented a partnership of Loughborough University Library, the Department of Information Science and LISU at Loughborough.

The project team consulted members of the academic library community and has now published the final report, which is now available to download.
LibPortal Project: Access to Library Provided Resources - A Survey and Review of Library-oriented Portals in Higher and Further Education (pdf 4.9MB)

A subsidiary Project featured a detailed case study of the implementation of Metalib at the Pilkington Library at Loughborough University.

A report of the Loughborough MetaLib Case Study is now available to download.
Metalib Case Study (pdf 208 KB)

LibPortal Project: Case Studies of Portal Implementation in Higher Education Libraries - a report to the Joint Information Systems Committee

The final report can be seen on the JISC web site and is also available to download here. LibPortal Project: Case Studies of Portal Implementation in Higher Education Libraries - a report to the Joint Information Systems Committee (pdf 292 KB)

Portals Defined

The LibPortal working definition of a library portal is: a network service that brings together content from diverse resources, including the library catalogue, on-line subscription reference material, e-journals and learning and teaching material. A portal offers a gateway to a range of high quality sources, presented to the user through a single interface, for example the library web site or a commercially produced package. Further explanation of portals appears on the JISC web site.

The Importance of Portals

The adoption of locally developed and commercial library portals in academic institutions is having a profound impact on the use of quality information sources, as well as on internal library workflows and efficiency. Library portals will be crucial to interoperation with national services and institutional portal and VLE developments.